


The Glitch

by LibertyKingdom



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-26
Updated: 2019-07-26
Packaged: 2020-07-20 13:53:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19993291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LibertyKingdom/pseuds/LibertyKingdom
Summary: Iris is taken from her home under the premise that a Rittenhouse agent will take her to her father. Instead, she unwittingly becomes a bargaining chip to be played against him. Having been dragged into time traveling aboard the Mothership, fourteen year old Iris develops a holoform like glitch.  Will she ever be reunited with her father? Or will she become a girl lost in time?





	The Glitch

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Timejvmped](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Timejvmped).



When Iris opened the front door to a man in a dark suit, she had been half expecting it to be her father. But this man held no semblance of even fleeting recognition in her Corillian eyes. “Can…can I help you?” She inquires, her voice wavering with the intensity of her nervousness. Iris curls her fingers around the door and hedges herself half in the entrance in case she would need to use the solid oak as a shield. 

The man’s pointer-finger lifts to push the brim of his dress hat upwards. The shadows just barely retreating from over his eyes. “I work with your father- Garcia Flynn. We work for an organization called Rittenhouse.” He figures that weaving just enough truth into his story, he could get her to come quietly. Therefore, forgoing making a scene which, was to be avoided at all costs as they were presently situated in a residential area. 

“Rittenhouse?” Iris willfully parrots. Was this the secret work her father had undertaken? Were these people the ones keeping her family safe? Her father had never disclosed any of this information to her. A silenced twinge of fear ripples down her spine. What if they weren’t who they said they were? If they worked with her dad, why wasn’t he here too? “Wh…where’s my dad?” The fourteen year old presses. 

The man, allows a pitiful expression of mock sympathy ghost across the contours of his face replies, “there’s been a development. We need you to come with us. It is for your safety. Your father would have come for you himself but we figured it was safer for one of us to collect you and take you to him.”

“I… I don’t know.” Iris hesitates. Her gaze flickers back into the house towards the kitchen. “Mom doesn’t like me leaving the house without telling her where I’m going.” Its the first polite excuse she can grasp at such a moment. Yet, a pang of guilt steals over the soft thunder of her heart. What if her father was in danger? What if she really was supposed to go with him?

Fumbling and wishing to work fast, the man return, “we haven’t time. You’re in danger.” Strangely enough, his words mirror that of her father’s. Before she could process the information further, his large hand claps tightly around her upper arm and he gives a rather unforgiving tug forward. So forceful is his pull that Iris didn’t even have time to properly close the front door. So it is left painfully ajar.

“Wait? Wait! Where are we going? What about my mom?” She protests, her face turning back towards her house whilst her feet are being force to continue plodding forwards.

But the man seems to have become deaf and mute much to Iris’s dismay. He was taking her into the woods. Could Rittenhouse have a headquarters there? No! No! This was all wrong! Her instinct shouted, the hairs on her arms bristling. Was this how she was going to die? Alone? In the woods? If only she knew what this was all about.  
From the mess and mangles of the rustic green leaves and brown branches arose a strange looking machine. One like she had never seen before. It was circular in nature and far larger than a car, on either side there was a band of blue lights, and in the middle it looked like one of those ancient all seeing eyes. Iris is so scared she can not find it in herself to call for help. What if her Dad had been brought here? What if he needed her rescue? Worse still- what if he was in this strange mechanism?

The closer they got the more awestruck and fearful Iris became. A loud chink-chink-chink starts to overpower all of her thoughts. It takes her a minute to realize the sound is being emitted from orb. “Wh…what is that?” She finally puffs out, dread dwelling within her tone.

“It’s the Mothership.” He replies simply, unaffected by the absurdity of this all. That seems to indicate he had seen it before. 

“As… as in aliens?” Iris swallows uneasily. 

This elicits a hearty laugh from the man. “No. There is no such thing as aliens. Just get in.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with you. I just want my dad!” She shouts to be heard over the racket. Her feet plant firmly on the ground. 

He furnishes a gun, pressing it harshly into her shoulder. “Get in.” Annoyance almost reverberating against his teeth. No more was he pleading with Garcia’s girl. She was as mulish and headstrong as her father.

Swallowing sharply, she clamored up into the Mothership’s interior. Iris blinks against the harsh light of the interior cabin. It was relatively empty save for the flickering screens of computers and wires. There were no signs of her father. More disheartened than relieved, Iris feels like crying. “You said you’d take me to my Dad,” she growls with an air of accusing. To which, she is pushed into the bucket seat nearest her. “Buckle up.” Thick grey straps are obediently enclosed across her small figure. “Look. I don’t know what this is. But you’re crazy if you think it’s going anywhere.”

The man realized only then that her father had imparted no knowledge of the operations to her. Never-the-less, he had come too far to return her back home. “Just watch.” September 6th, 1940- Birmingham, England is typed into the computer. Naturally, he was only giving a few hours before the German blitzkrieg. He was told to kidnap Iris. They didn’t say she had to live. In fact, Rittenhouse probably preferred her dead. It would make her father more open to assisting their cause.

The interior cabin begins to rattle, shaking with such a ferocity that Iris digs her fingernails into the plush of the seat. ‘Its going to be okay.’ She repeats to herself in an endless mantra. The roar of the Mothership grows to rival that of a plane before take-off.

Her stomach gets queasy from the movement.

And suddenly everything goes completely dark.

_____

Cold. The air held not the sometimes blistering warmth of June. Yet, there is an electric headiness lingering in every molecule. Dark lashes batter, prying open slowly. ‘That was just a nightmare.’ She tells herself as she begins to regain sensation in her extremities. But when her eyes adjust she comes to the harsh realization that she was NOT at home. Her setting was greatly unfamiliar. Corillian hues drop downwards in inspection to discover that her clothing was odd. No more was she wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Instead, it had been replaced by a funny looking dress.

“Hello?” Iris shakily breathes. The sound of her fearful voice echoing endlessly off the barren walls around her. She shakily tries to stand but her head throbbed something terrible so she slumps back down to the dirt floor. “Dad?” A static sensation shoots across her body causing a mild twitch. Determined, she pulls herself upwards using the headboard of her bed. One step forward, is followed by another and another until she reaches a long corridor. “H… Hello?” This one is less certain and far less confident. “Is… is anyone out there?”

Just as she was about to leave the room she heard muffled voices discussing plans in the hallway. “Just make sure Flynn upholds his end of the bargain. Preferably before the bombing.” 

Curiosity had gotten the better of Iris and before she could silence herself, she asks, “wh… what bargain? What bombing? Are you going to hurt people? You can’t do that!”

“Who let the child in here?!” A woman with hair the shade of hot embers demanded. Her gaze was not entirely unfriendly although, her words had indicated Iris had severely miss-stepped. “I told you to secure her until her dad gets here. She is our one advantage.”

Advantage? Iris felt her stomach churn with a sense of uneasiness as she is escorted back into the room from whence she had emerged. Her gaze falls upon a newspaper by the window. Out of boredom she picks it up. “London Times September 1940?!” She reads aloud. This- this has to be a joke! Peering out the window she becomes even more alarmed. Where were the normal cars?!!! And why were people including her dressed in such funny clothes? This couldn’t be World War Two? Could it?

Time travel? No. It couldn’t be. Iris refused to accept that she could be so removed from her father by a distance of nearly 80 years. Then he may never find her.


End file.
